On Thursday, at a conference hosted jointly by The American Conservative and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy gave a keynote address about what it means to be “America First.”

Ramaswamy emphasized that Americans ought to be confident that those who run the government have America’s best interests at heart; he said of America’s leaders, “They owe their sole moral duty to the citizens of this nation.”

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But our leaders fall short of providing U.S. citizens with such security, he argued. Every time Congress intervenes by “investing” in global conflicts (he addressed Ukraine, Armenia, and Israel specifically), America is put into a more precarious position, “increasing the risk of World War III.”

In a subsequent one-on-one discussion with TAC’s Executive Director, Curt Mills, Ramaswamy stated that those who favor sending American money abroad often have financial incentives of their own: “I think they hold the views that they do in part because they are what the American system has become: An assembly line for politicians becoming products that are funded by people who write checks.” 

In order to break the never-ending cycle that takes advantage of Americans, Ramaswamy suggested that, “We the people [should] put people in charge of the government that are accountable to us, who get voted out if they don't serve us.”